Learning about JAPAN: Japanese landscape art

It's all about Japan this last week in our house.
Today we looked through the book of Hiroshige prints and paintings.

We talked how there are recurring themes in pretty much every picture- trees, mount Fuji, rivers and sea (water), sunset, people. We talked how love and admiration of nature is an important part of Japanese culture. We also noticed that on these pictures colors weren't bright, nor were they even.

Then we attempted to create our own Japanese landscapes.
There are very good ideas at Smithsonian Education web site regarding teaching Art of Japan.
A few days ago I saw a lovely idea how to make pretty colors with markers and water at Deep Space Sparkle  and I figured it would be a great way to create these beautiful uneven colors.

First we drew our large shapes- hills, sea, volcano. We added extra color at the edges and some waves to the sea and pink clouds in the sky. Then we added small details- houses and  trees. We grabbed our paintbrushes and water and "washed" our paper. It was so much fun and running colors created a lovely effect. D. was delighted. It also good that we used several shades of the same color- it added to the overall prettiness. We did not "wash" small details, only large ones for fear that it's just going to be messy, so after our paintings dried up we finished coloring houses with regular markers.

D.'s finished painting